Severn Trent to help 100,000 more water customers with £30m package
The water company Severn Trent has launched a £30m financial support package to help a further 100,000 of its customers, as it warns that the cost of living crisis means more people are struggling to pay their water bill.
The Coventry-headquartered company, which supplies more than 8 million customers across a region stretching from the Bristol Channel to the Humber and from mid-Wales to the east Midlands, said it had the second-lowest water bills in England at £389 a year.
The company already supported about 215,000 of its customers with their water bill through a social tariff, allowing them to reduce it by up to 90%.
The new funding will result in Severn Trent offering help to 315,000 people, representing about 6% of their total customers. It said this figure represented the number of customers who were assessed as living in water poverty in the region it covered.
“As cost of living pressures continue, we’re acting now to support people struggling to pay their bills,” said Liv Garfield, the chief executive.
“Our customers have the second-lowest combined bill in the UK at around £1 per day but we know that for some, paying their bill is a challenge.”
A review of water affordability, carried out a year ago by the industry’s consumer watchdog, found that 1.5 million homes across England and Wales were in water poverty, with a further 3 million on the edge of it, meaning they were paying more than 5% of their income after housing costs on water bills.
The Consumer Council for Water has previously called for a social water tariff for struggling households, and criticised the patchwork nature of financial support available across the country, which varies between regional water suppliers.
The number of households struggling to pay
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